The RB Official MTB Cycling Book Review Thread
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Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
Signed the contract with Velo Press for a book on my bicycling activities between 1970 and 1990, a most interesting time. Need to sell a few to recoup the advance.
i for one will be purchasing a copy when possible. being only 22 years young i was far from being even a twinkle in my fathers eye when you were shredding down those hills on klunkers, so to learn about the roots from which the sport grew, from the guy who was their himself and instigated many movements within the field alongside the likes of fisher, is something that cant come soon enough.
incidentally, my first "proper bike" was a fisher, so will be moreso intrigued to see what other info you shall be sharing with us on gary fisher
incidentally, my first "proper bike" was a fisher, so will be moreso intrigued to see what other info you shall be sharing with us on gary fisher
Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
dav101":1cp1e46r said:
You wouldn't want to know everything I know about Gery, and he wouldn't want me to tell you.
Repack Rider":1b8674r1 said:dav101":1b8674r1 said:
You wouldn't want to know everything I know about Gery, and he wouldn't want me to tell you.
i understand, some secrets should be kept as such
cant wait for the first publication, i see in your earlier post you put around 6 months, i've already read the main page of your site and the article "the art of mountain bikes", and will make my way through the subsequent articles over the next few days, having a bad back gives you a lot of spare time
, so for me it can't come quick enough Radar":20t6vr3s said:
Do you mean Richards' Bicycle Repair Manual? by Richard Ballantine & Richard Grant, Published by Dorling Kindersley, 1994, ISBN 0-7513-0087-x
Quite a good book for repairs to retro bikes, plenty of good colour pictures, and if you can pick up a copy cheaply on eBay then it's definately worth a look.
The Mountain Biking Handbook - By Barry Ricketts, published by Arena Press, 1988, ISBN 1-85443-005-x
Contains information about bike and component choice, component fitting and repair, planning a ride etc it covers all bases really and is quite a fun read, and it has some great pictures of folk in neon lycra
The Bicycle Wheel (3rd Edition) - By Jobst Brandt, published by Avocet, 1993 (3rd Edition), ISBN 0-9607236-6-8
THE Bible for wheelbuilding imo, as well as going through the why's and wherefore's it goes deeper into the science behind the wheel, this is the book that taught me how to build a bicycle wheel. It's not the most riveting of reading though, Jobst Brandt has a technical, almost clinical approach, but read it, absorb it, and then build your own wheels!
Stumpjumper : 25 Years Of Mountainbiking - by Mark Riedy, published by Breakaway Books, 2005, ISBN 1-891369-63-6
More a graphical timeline than a book proper, plenty of colour photo's and specs of the iconic Specialized bike though, from the early Stumpjumper to the 2005 FSR, will no doubt interest Specialized fanboi's, but also has some interesting bits on the riders and races (Ned Overend, the Cactus Cup etc).
Repack Rider
Senior Retro Guru
jimo746":1fd08fc9 said:
The book is a little distorted. I get a huge amount of attention, while my associates Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze get almost none. The reason of course is that all of the others are current competitors for Specialized. My position outside the industry makes me a safe subject.
Not that I'm complaining. They gave me a bike too.
lebuski
Dirt Disciple
I want to recommend a great book I recently read. It is about a journey that the author Rob Lilwal took on a 10 year old steel frame mountain bike. It took 3 years and 35000 miles. It is called Cycling Home From Siberia. If we had a MTB Hall of Fame here on Retrobike this guy should definately be in it. He suffered broken rims, broken frame, hundreds of flats, traffic accidents, loneliness, debilitating sickness, hunger and armed robbery but he never gave up. At best the guy could be described as an eccentric English man, at worst 'crazy' either way I'm looking forward to reading it again.
